Nothing frustrates me more than the non-update. I define it as:

a communication issued within the promised window of time to express the status of nothing has changed and to establish another window for an update.

I am patient and willing to wait for a real update. When I see an email from someone I am waiting to hear from, there is the surge of dopamine in anticipation of a completed task. Only to receive the disappointment of that surge of neurotransmitters being falsely exerted. I feel betrayed. Well, not at first, but when I’ve been strung out over and over, I come to feel like they are terrible at their job.

Save yourself the trouble.

1. If you think you can have an update for me tomorrow, then give yourself an extra day. If you think you can this week, then give yourself an extra week.
2. If there are obvious difficulties present such as your people are at an all week meeting, then do not commit during that event. Give me a time after it is over.
3. If there is any likely stumbling block, then let me know ahead of time rather than after which sounds like an excuse. A vendor told me on a Monday they would have something for me that week only for me to find out the next week the system needed went down for upgrades and would be down two weeks. As soon as they learned it would be down, I should have been told rather than have to learn about it later.
4. Hedge by giving me a range of time. “I’ll try to have this to by x. but it might be as long as y.”